It may not be the first supplement to be called a “wonder vitamin”, but it is one of the few to have lived up to the name. Last week, the biggest review of the role of vitamin D in health found that people who took supplements of the vitamin for six years reduced their risk of dying from all causes.

Overall mortality

It was the proof that researchers had been waiting for. Earlier studies had suggested that vitamin D played a key role in protecting against cancer, heart disease and diabetes – conditions that account for 60 to 70 per cent of all deaths in the West.

The new study, by scientists from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon and the European Institute of Oncology in Milan and published in Archives of Internal Medicine, shows that it does.

The review of 18 trials involving 57,000 people found that those who took the supplements had an 7 per cent lower risk of death overall during the six-year period of the study. Click here for full report.